Introduces a theme issue that focuses on the vulnerability thesis as it relates to public-school superintendents and what that means for superintendent-education programs and the practice of school supervision. The issue is designed to reexamine earlier work by Callahan (1962) and indicate where others have misread, misinterpreted, and misused…

Reexamines Callahan's book, "Education and the Cult of Efficiency" (1962), and his vulnerability thesis regarding school superintendents, discussing recommendations it made and highlighting public education in the 1990s. Callahan's recommendations were well-received but not well-heeded, and the vulnerability thesis did not provide the stimulus for…

Summarizes the viability of the vulnerability thesis as a tool in accounting for school superintendent behavior today, suggesting how the thesis can be built on in order to better understand the political world of superintendency. The paper suggests some social and political theories that might extend the thesis, further clarifying the…

This paper wraps up a theme issue on Callahan's vulnerability thesis (as related to school superintendents), which was presented in his 1962 book, Education and the Cult of Efficiency. The paper examines the various authors' points of view and focuses on the concept of inquiry and its importance and power in education. (SM)

The education reforms of the 1980s may best be viewed as a single national reform with state variations. A brief overview is presented of five state education reforms which are described and analyzed in this issue. (JD)

Business takes the lead in four stages of school reform in Texas. Legislative sessions that dealt with educational reform are described. The reform is seen as reinforcing the power holders in the state education structure rather than reforming them, and provides an example of pluralistic politics. (JD)